The Benefits of Separating Rail Infrastructure from Operations

Abstract:

The author offers a number of reasons
for separating rail infrastructure from operations: to
reduce unit costs, to create intrarail competition, to
better focus on the services to be provided, to clarify
public policy, and to strike a better balance between the
roles of the public and private sectors. Moreover, recent
experience with "negative" concessions, in which
the private sector provides public services (based on
competition to provide the service and in return for
compensation), is adding another dimension to the
"public vs. private" debate. In this sense
separating infrastructure allows new approaches to the
problem of meeting public responsibilities. Concessioning
programs in Argentina, Sweden, and the United Kingdom define
the broad alternatives in rail infrastructure separation.
The two main challenges for separation are capacity
management and pricing policies. While it is true that
infrastructure separation is messy and expensive, it will be
a small price to pay if "fragmentation" offers a
better fit for consumers.